Boots
by StarkAndSkinny
Summary: It has been 22 years since the war ended - but Aldo Raine still wants his revenge.


He always thought of the war when he did this.

Every time he had a spare moment to sit down and listen to his own thoughts, he would think of the war. This usually only happened when he was brewing hooch; letting the malt sit there and boil was the only time he had to kick back, relax, and think. Otherwise, there was constant work to do around the falling-apart shack that he called home.

Sitting there, by the fire, listening to the mash bubble and fizz inside the still with soft popping sounds, he thought of the war.

He thought of Andy Kagan. He thought of Simon Sakowitz.

He thought of Gerry Hirschberg. Poor son of a bitch didn't even manage to pay his debt of one hundred Nazi scalps before the Jerries got to him. In fact, he realized, the only Basterds who actually managed to pay him back were Utivich, Wicki, Stiglitz, Ulmer and Donowitz.

Ulmer and Donowitz. His memory of their faces was slowly getting worse and worse. He had no idea where he had placed that picture they managed to snap in the woods all those years back - and even if he did remember where that thing was, it was by now yellow with age and faded. Useless.

He thought back to Operation Kino, to the night at the theater. He thought back, counting, and had to do it three times, because it couldn't have been_ twenty-two years_, could it? It couldn't have been twenty-two years since Pfc. Omar Ulmer and SSgt. Donny Donowitz ended the war.

He tried to imagine his men in their white tuxedo suits.

Shaking his head with a chuckle that came out as more of a grunt, Aldo Raine heavily stood up and slowly ambled over to the distillery. That goddamn song they kept playing on the radio has been on his brain forever now, days and nights, and he couldn't shake it off. The worst thing was that he didn't even remember the lyrics, so he couldn't sing along to it. He only remembered the melody, humming it as he checked on the bubbling malt.

Everything seemed to be working properly. Humming, Aldo went back to his seat.

Hans Landa. He was the reason why Donowitz and Ulmer had to go the way they did. Had he not been such a fuckin' big-mouth and cut the deal with the brass without fucking around the way he did, the two men might have still been alive. If not for that Nazi fuck. Ulmer was a little bit thick, yeah, and Donowitz had a very short fuse - but they were good men. Good men that died in vain.

He'd been seeing Landa everywhere since the war ended. He saw Hans Landa in the faces of all the people he hated. He saw Hans Landa in every deer and gopher he shot dead, saw Hans Landa in every snake he beheaded.

And that goddamn song stuck in his head, Christ. Fuck him if he could remember the words.

Well, damn, if Aldo Raine didn't know what to do. He should have gone down to Nantucket Island and shot the bastard years ago. He should have fucking killed him right then and there in the woods in France. He should have avenged his men's death. Not just Donowitz and Ulmer's, but Wicki and Stiglitz's and the rest of the Basterds', too. How could he, though? He was an old man. Sometimes, even he forgot his own age.

Catching his own reflection in the copper of the still, Aldo Raine could not believe he was in his mid-sixties. He'd never thought he'd make it this long.

And that fucking annoying song they kept playing on the radio. Ta, da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da...

He caught himself humming and bouncing his knee to the beat.

And why not, actually? Why shouldn't he travel to Massachusetts with the big, rusty dagger stuffed away in his bag? The man had a goddamn swastika carved into his forehead - who in the world would blame Aldo for killing him? Nah. No one. In fact, people will probably cheer for him.

Aldo glanced back at his fish-eyed reflection. _Well, fuck it, _he thought.

It took two trains, hitchhiking and a ferry ride to get to Nantucket. He boarded a train from Tennessee to Chicago, and from there another one to Boston (in which he imagined Donny everywhere, visiting all those places he never shut his yap about; everything he grew up with and would never see again). He sat by windows, humming that stupid fucking song over and over again and tapping his foot, stuck with that incredibly repetitive melody, like a broken record, people looking at him as if he was a crazy person. After that, it was hitchhiking from Boston to Hyannis, and from there, a ferry to Nantucket Island.

It wasn't hard tracking Hans Landa down. All he had to do was wander around the ferry and ask the local folks, _hey, how's about that Kraut living 'round? Yeah, right, the one with the swastika scar. D'ya know him? D'ya know where he lives?_

_Yes, of course, he doesn't leave his home all that often. He lives alone in a big house at the east end of Rugged Road._

It took Aldo Raine two and a half hours to find his way to his desired destination. His feet weren't what they used to be, and he was hot and sweaty under his cheap button-down shirt and worn-out military boots and crazed beyond belief with that ridiculous song playing over and over again in his head. He went down Lovers Lane till everything blurred together and looked the same, right to left, and then, just when he thought his brain was going to explode with the repetitive melody buzzing at the back of his mind, snippets of words flashing in and out of memory; _you've been a-messin' where you blah blah blah_ - just then, he found the right turn that took him into Rugged Road. It was a short walk from there.

Tonguing his cracked lips, Aldo stepped heavily up to the front porch, boots thumping loudly against the old wooden steps. Knowing his arrival would not go unnoticed, he did not waste time before knocking on the front door, also wooden, painted green with white trim. How quaint.

There was music coming from behind the closed door, muffled down to nothing more than unrecognizable noise. Then there were footsteps, and everything broke inside Aldo Raine for a mere second, as the steps stopped behind the door and the door handle turned.

And there he was. Death itself, more dooming and malevolent than any Nazi officer or official Aldo spotted in his short visit to _Le Gamaar_, the man who, by his own estimation, Aldo Raine had mentally killed more than 500 times. There he was, Aldo Raine's personal Grim Reaper, Hades, Anubis, Azrael, Ba'al Zebub; Aldo Raine's personal Devil. Hans Landa.

Hans Landa was scrawny. Hans Landa was smaller than Aldo remembered him. Hans Landa had grown gray hair long in front in an attempt to hide his scar, and was grooming a gray beard. Hans Landa was leaning on a cane.

And, holy shit, holy _shit_, there it was - the muffled music, the beat that was coming down the hall from inside the kitchen, blaring out a very well-kept, black eight-track that was placed on the kitchen counter -

_You keep sayin' you've got something for me,_

_Something you call love, but confess..._

There the fuck it was, right there and then, sending Aldo a message from the Lord himself, the Big Kahuna -

_You've been a-messin' where you shouldn't have been a-messin'..._

There it was, that stupid song that has been stuck in his head for weeks, _there the fuck it was._

Landa did not even get the chance to make a sound before Aldo grabbed the cane right out of his hand. With amazing dexterity and adrenaline, as if nothing had changed and he was still a young second lieutenant in the 1st SSF, Aldo Raine snatched the cane right out of the old, wrinkly Nazi's hand and raised it high in the air. He imagined everything he wished he could do to Landa, imagined he was the Bear Jew swinging his baseball bat – and swung the cane down, down, down, and hit Landa right in the kidneys with all his might.

_And now someone else is gettin' all your best..._

Hans Landa fell to his knees. Aldo swung his cane high and hit him again, this time at shoulder-height, and he swung the cane up and hit the man again and again, forcing him to the floor, swinging and swinging like a maniac, until, when he raised the cane again, he did it with such will and vigor that the stick flew right out from between his fingers and over his head, landing on the soft grass of Hans Landa's front yard.

Landa managed to roll over to his back before Aldo began to kick him. He kicked in the ribs, first, satisfied with the crack that greeted the dark leather of his boot before he continued to stomp on the man that was twisting and squirming on the floor, breaking ribs with every stomp, letting gravity pull his foot down with all the force he could muster.

_These boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do..._

"Why?" Hans Landa cried from his black hole of a mouth, disabled and broken, trying vainly to defend himself.

"Because I should have done this_ years _ago." Raine replied, boot heel hitting hard against the flat of Landa's scrawny chest.

_One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you._

Aldo Raine cracked Landa's arms, stomping until he could feel the weak bones break under the soles of his boots, stomping to Nancy Sinatra's catchy beat. He couldn't believe this was happening. He could not believe Landa actually, really, owned a tape of the song that had been making him a madman, playing in his house, over and over again, greeting Aldo, inviting him - that Hans Landa _wanted_ Aldo Raine to kill him.

_You keep lying when you oughta be truthin',_

_And you keep losin' when you oughta not bet..._

He stood on Landa's left hip, stomping down hard on his right, cracking pelvis along the central seam and splitting it in two. If there were screaming, Aldo didn't know - the only thing he could hear was Sinatra, mouthing her masterpiece like a rare classic piece.

_You keep saming, when you oughta be a-changin',_

_Now, what's right is right - but you ain't been right yet..._

Then, Aldo Raine went for the face. He almost jumped on the old Nazi's head, repeating the movement like a crazy person, until he could feel acid pump through his veins instead of blood, until there was nothing left under his own skin but muscle and bone - up, down, up, down; _stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp_; until there was nothing left of Hans Landa's face to recognize, until his skull was smashed and blood was seeping through the fine lines in the wooden floor, surrounding whatever was left of the man's head like a speech bubble, and thus, good triumphed evil.

_These boots are made for walkin',_

_And that's just what they'll do._

_One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you._

Gasping for air, sweat trickling down the lines of his forehead and soaking into his sideburns, staining under his arms and at the base of his chest, behind his under-shit - Aldo Raine ceased his crazed frenzy and looked around. That was it. Hans Landa was dead. All seven Jewish American soldiers were avenged. He got what he came down to Nantucket for. But... Aldo Raine did not feel satisfaction. He did not feel relief. Even while blaring out the eight-track, Nancy Sinatra was still haunting him, the lyrics popping in his head before she had even sung then, even though he couldn't bring himself to remember a single word previously.

Staggering over Landa's dead body, Aldo made a run for the kitchen, looking for God-knows-what; and, in failing to find anything, he let his heavy feet carry him outside, to a small shack in the back yard, where Aldo Raine found a gasoline-powered lawn-mower. And where there was a gasoline-powered lawn-mower, there was gasoline.

_You keep playin' where you shouldn't be playin'..._

Aldo grabbed the large, red metal can, carrying it with both hands as he stumbled back towards the house. Once inside, he uncapped the yellow nozzle, pouring liquid all over the place, so careless that he almost spilled some over his boots and slacks - his hands were shaking now, and he slowly made his way towards the front door, making sure he splashed every doorway, every room that once used to contain the presence of Standartenfuhrer Hans Landa of the S.S.

_And you keep thinking that you'll never get burnt,_

_Ha! I just found me a brand new box of matches, yeah,_

_And what he knows, you ain't had time to learn..._

He imagined having gasoline poured all over your open wounds would hurt, had you been alive. Luckily enough for Hans Landa, that was not the case. He poured what remained in the container over the dead man's body and all the way across to the front door, tossing the red metal aside and searching his coat frantically for his matches.

_These boots are made for walkin',_

_And that's just what they'll do..._

Aldo Raine pulled out his light and almost fell down the front porch's stairs as he stumbled backwards. Steadying himself against the white wooden handrail, he fiddled around with the matchbox, and the shake of his hands threw it to the floor, scattering matches all across his feet. He crouched down and carefully picked up the box along with a single match, pressing his lips together as he fought to light the small piece of wood in his hand.

_One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you._

The match lit. Aldo Raine tossed it at the front door, quickly stepping off the porch and out to the front yard.

He cocked his head, watching the gasoline catch the flame. He watched as the object formerly known as Hans Landa caught fire.

_Are you ready, boots?_

_Start walkin'!_

Aldo Raine stood there for a while longer to watch the house burn. When he was satisfied that it was sufficiently ablaze, he wiped his bloody boots on the grass and tucked his cheap shirt back into his trousers. He slicked back his hair and pulled the straps of his suspenders back to their appropriate place. He smoothed his mustache.

Aldo Raine turned his back on Hell and strolled slowly down Rugged Road, towards Lovers Lane, cheerfully whistling Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog."


End file.
